Ann Romney, 63, is proud of her roots as the granddaughter of a Glamorgan coalminer and played up her working class origins on the campaign trail in an effort to counter accusations that her husband's vast wealth meant he did not understand ordinary voters' concerns.

She has made regular trips back to see her family in South Wales, most recently this summer, and they have taken a great personal interest from afar in the twists and turns of this year's election.

Jeffrey Smith, 65, a second cousin of Mrs Romney, will tonight for the first time in his life stay up to watch the results from the American poll come in.

He stressed that he did not want to pronounce an opinion on US politics but said he would be proud for a member of his family to enter the White House.

"I'm not taking sides. It's not my country – it's not fair to comment on somebody else's politics. But I would like to see him get in for Ann's sake," he said.

"I did follow it four years ago, but when he dropped out and didn't get the nomination my interest did tend to wane a bit. I have followed it with intensity this year because of the family connection." Mr Smith, a semi-retired tax adviser from Llangynwyd, South Wales, last saw Mrs Romney in early August when she attended a family tea party hosted by another second cousin, Roddy Evans, 77, a former Wales and British Lions rugby player, at his home in the seaside resort of Porthcawl.

"Not a political tea party like they have in the States," he joked.

Mrs Romney was able to visit Wales this summer without a security entourage, but she spoke at the three-hour gathering of how her life would change if she became America's First Lady.

Mr Smith recalled: "She said her private life would be dominated by security – she wouldn't be able to do certain things, she would have so many people around her.

"He would be regarded as the most powerful man in the world, so security goes hand in hand with that." Mrs Romney's grandfather, David Davies, lost a kidney in a mining accident and left the village of Nantyffyllon, near Bridgend, during the Great Depression in around 1929 to build a better life in America with his wife Annie and their children.

She has maintained ties with her heritage, serving homemade Welsh cakes to journalists following her husband's election campaign and even speaking a few words of Welsh that her grandmother taught her.

Mr Smith agreed it would be incredible for the granddaughter of a coalminer who lived in a two-up, two-down house in Nantyffyllon to end up as America's First Lady.

He added: "I can't see how it's going to have any effect on us in Wales, but it will be nice to know that a relative is in the White House." There is rather less enthusiasm for the US election among the British relations of Mr Romney, 65, whose great-great-grandfather, Miles Romney, was born in Dalton-in-Furness in present-day Cumbria in 1806, became a Mormon in Preston in the late 1830s, and sailed with his family to America in 1841.

Mr Romney's fourth cousin twice removed, Maria Nash, 32, who lives in Preston, suggested that Barack Obama would make a better president, adding: "If Romney does get in, I wonder how long it will be before he makes a mess of it." Her husband Simon Nash, 54, said: "He's not really our politics. We're normal Lancashire folk – we just want everything fair for everyone. He's not visited any of the family. He hasn't stepped foot out of London.

"We're not going to stay up [for the election result]. I will go to sleep with Radio 5 on. If I hear the result and he wins, I might wake Maria up and tell her."